"I hope they made a mistake," Polk recalled thinking. "It's $8,500. It's a million gallons of water."

They made a mistake, said Joe Harwood at EWEB.

"What happened was essentially a transcription error that added up to an added extra digit to Mr. Polk's water use and hence when he opened his bill he had severe sticker shock," he said. "We usually catch those, but in this case, which is fairly rare, we actually had one that slipped through."

Harwood said the utility investigated the bill after getting a call from KVAL News. EWEB corrected the bill.

That pleased Polk, who said his $8,500 bill will be a more reasonable $150.